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Based on ethnographic research conducted with the Network of Healthy Communities in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this article examines how grassroots leaders have sought networks and partnerships as a strategy to amplify and strengthen their work, particularly through the exchange of information. It provides a gender analysis of activists' work, leadership styles, motivations, mobilisation strategies, and difficulties. The study concludes that the politicisation of motherhood is critical for women's emergence as leaders, as well as for creating the necessary conditions for work in communities dominated by drug lords. Rather than reinforcing traditional gender conceptions, activism revises gender relations and identities. Health policies should include grassroots leaders, and invest in their potential for community health promotion, so that family and community medicine programmes can benefit from working with activists and using their strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world production of meats is mainly concentrated in the countries with a hot climate. Among these countries, Brazil, considered "world's breadbasket", is located in the intertropical zone, with hot climates and presents lower thermal amplitude. Brazilian poultry is a leader in the production and export of broilers. Brazil has the second largest cattle herd in the world, has the largest commercial herd besides being the largest exporter of beef. Brazilian swine breeding, among the most advanced production chains in the world, occupy the position of fourth largest producer of pork in the world. Projections for Brazil's meat production sector indicate strong growth in the coming years, with countries in hot climates that will continue to sustain future growth in world meat production, ensuring food security in many countries. One of the factors responsible for the success or failure of animal production is the environment, defined by the sum of all physical and biological factors that affect animals. In these regions of hot climates, climatic factors are among the main limiting factors to the development of animal production, which may compromise animal welfare and productivity indices. Behavioral information can aid in the analysis of problems arising from environmental conditions unfavorable to animals, helping both decision making and the use of different environmental conditioning systems. The introduction of technification in the animal behavior evaluation processes, through the use of video cameras and image processing programs, allowed a better interpretation of the behavioral responses, quickly, accurately and non-invasively, gradually being used with greater frequency in the animal production sectors. The study of animal behavior assumes an important role in animal production, since, to rationalize the breeding methods, management, feeding and facilities techniques have been developed that interfere with animal behavior. In this context, the use of digital image analysis techniques, where the animals themselves are used as biosensors in response to environmental conditions, contributes to the analysis of animal behavior, and consequently also to the assessment of the internal environment of the production in hot weather. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to evaluate two types of poultry bedding litter (wood shavings and coffee husks) with increasing use cycles, the best time to proceed with composting based on the carbon/nitrogen ratio and the ability to generate ammonia. The results obtained with the present experiment conditions indicated that the litter with wood shavings in the first cycle and the litter with coffee husks in the first and second cycles presented the best behavior in terms of the C/N ratio needed for later use as compost. In regards to the contamination potential, it was found that increasing the number of reutilizations for both the wood-shaving and coffee-husk litters resulted in a greater ammonia emission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schistosoma mansoni is the most widespread of the human-infecting schistosomes, present in 54 countries, predominantly in Africa, but also in Madagascar, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Neotropics. Adult-stage parasites that infect humans are also occasionally recovered from baboons, rodents, and other mammals. Larval stages of the parasite are dependent upon certain species of freshwater snails in the genus Biomphalaria, which largely determine the parasite's geographical range. How S. mansoni genetic diversity is distributed geographically and among isolates using different hosts has never been examined with DNA sequence data. Here we describe the global phylogeography of S. mansoni using more than 2500 bp of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 143 parasites collected in 53 geographically widespread localities. Considerable within-species mtDNA diversity was found, with 85 unique haplotypes grouping into five distinct lineages. Geographical separation, and not host use, appears to be the most important factor in the diversification of the parasite. East African specimens showed a remarkable amount of variation, comprising three clades and basal members of a fourth, strongly suggesting an East African origin for the parasite 0.30–0.43 million years ago, a time frame that follows the arrival of its snail host. Less but still substantial variation was found in the rest of Africa. A recent colonization of the New World is supported by finding only seven closely related New World haplotypes which have West African affinities. All Brazilian isolates have nearly identical mtDNA haplotypes, suggesting a founder effect from the establishment and spread of the parasite in this large country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]